Descripción del proyecto
Una nueva perspectiva de la sexualidad de las mujeres mayores
El deseo sexual de una persona probablemente cambiará a medida que envejezca. La asexualidad se define como la falta de atracción sexual hacia los demás o la falta de interés en el sexo. Las mujeres mayores son consideradas, por lo general, como asexuales. Esta percepción ha supuesto la exclusión de las mujeres mayores de la investigación. Además, su sexualidad se considera tabú. El objetivo del proyecto financiado con fondos europeos LiLI es invertir esta tendencia en la investigación y promover estudios sobre las mujeres mayores y la sexualidad. Allanará el camino para lograr cambios significativos en las teorías feministas sobre el envejecimiento y el deseo sexual. Un equipo multidisciplinar de académicos de los campos de la antropología, la geografía social, los estudios culturales y la filosofía feminista desarrollará una investigación etnográfica revolucionaria con múltiples métodos para comprender la sexualidad de las mujeres mayores.
Objetivo
Almost half a century ago, Simone de Beauvoir (1970) denounced what she called the ‘conspiracy of silence’ in public and scholarly debates about women growing older. Little has changed since then. In spite of the expanding number and proportion of older women in the population and the changing cultural norms regarding sexuality, older women are still often overlooked in research, and their sexuality in particular is still a taboo. Older women are supposed to become asexual and when their sexuality is considered, it is interpreted within a medicalized and phallocentric framework that starts from young adult standards. So far, social sciences and humanities have failed to develop a viable alternative to this line of thinking. The proposed project aims to rectify this significant gap in research and break the silence around older women and sex. A multi-disciplinary team of scholars with expertise in anthropology, social geography, cultural studies and feminist philosophy will collaborate and tackle challenging research questions in order to acquire a fundamentally new, affirmative understanding of women’s later life sexuality. A radical multi-method ethnographic research methodology will be developed, (1) based on long-term participant observation in various settings and (2) with a specific focus on ‘unruly’ sexual strategies of older women across different social categories. By uncovering counter-hegemonic knowledge of older women—knowledge that usually stays under the radar of academic attention—the project has great potential to revolutionize how we look at women, old age, and sex. A shift in thinking is needed because the prevalent conceptualizations are blatantly oppressive for older women. Moreover, the project’s methodological-theoretical design that brings older women’s subversive sexual strategies to the forefront of research has also the potential to open the way for radical changes in feminist theorizations of intersectional power, sexual desire and ageing.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
9000 Gent
Bélgica